Filibuster: Another Remnant of Slavery Protection Days

found online by Raymond

 

Mitch McConnell threatens to tie up Senate over filibuster, Jan 22, 2021     [Image from Bloomberg Quicktake: Now]

From Kathy Gill at The Moderate Voice:

When I figured out that the modern filibuster is first cousin to the three-fifths clause and the Electoral College, its use by the 21st century GOP and Mitch McConnell made so much sense.

Follow along; I’ll show you how I got here. And in the process, how I evolved from someone who has historically honored norms to someone who sees clearly how the contemporary Senators have debased them. Trump was the culmination, not the initiation, of the Republican Party’s rejection of history.

First, the Constitution is predicated on majority votes, not the supermajority required by a filibuster. The Articles of Confederation (remember them? they failed) required a supermajority. Each state had one vote, and 9 of 13 states were needed to pass any law of substance. Based on personal experience, the framers crafted a Constitution that has limited requirements for a supermajority. For example, a two-thirds majority is needed to override a presidential veto, to expel a member of the Senate, or to convict a federal officer of an impeachable offense.

Nor was the filibuster part of the original Senate. The framers knew it could/would be abused. It did not come to life until they had all died.

“Originally, Senate rules included a provision allowing a majority to end debate, and an early manual written by Thomas Jefferson established procedures for silencing senators who debated ‘superfluous, or tediously.’ Obstruction was considered beneath them.”

But John C. Calhoun (SC) — the man who started the Civil War — wanted a Senate where the minority could block the majority. James Madison (VA, the “father of the Constitution”) believed majority rule was the “republican principle.”

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Sarah Huckabee Sanders Will Protect People Of Arkansas From Questions

found online by Raymond

 

Sarah Huckabee Sanders     [Image from WPRI]

From The Onion:

LITTLE ROCK, AR—Announcing her official bid for governor, Sarah Huckabee Sanders vowed Monday to protect the good people of Arkansas from any questions. “As governor, I promise to do everything in my power to ensure Arkansans never have to answer another heinous question again,” said Sanders, who explained she was compelled to run for office after witnessing firsthand the destructive effects of questions in Washington.

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Anti-Impeachment Republicans Urge “Three Coup Attempts, You’re Out” Law

found online by Raymond

 

Senator Rand Paul     [Image from Senator Rand Paul]

From Andy Borowitz:

The bill’s sponsor, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, said that the law would send a clear signal to future Presidents that “we will have zero tolerance for coup attempts if they try to do it three times.”

“After the first coup attempt, a President would receive a warning, just as you would if you made an illegal left turn or had a broken tail light,” Paul explained. “After the second coup attempt, the United States Senate will draft a resolution telling you that you’d better not try it a third time.”

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Kentucky Enacts ‘Born Alive’ Bill, Based on Fear-Mongering Lie About Abortion

found online by Raymond

 

     [Image from CBS News]

From Imani Gandy at Rewire News Group:

SB 9 will make an already difficult situation even more difficult for pregnant people in Kentucky during a particularly painful time.

So what exactly is the Born Alive law? It is a fear-mongering and myth-making law based on the lie that abortion providers are somehow aborting newborns with regularity. (Aborting a newborn is called murder or infanticide where I’m from.)

It is utter propaganda as well as a blatant attempt for Republican legislators to control how and when physicians provide care, as Calla Hales previously wrote for Rewire News Group:

These bills are worded very intentionally, with the aim to further the false narrative that abortions regularly occur immediately before or, according to [Trump], at the time of birth. While it should be apparent, it is still necessary to point out that any intentional action to end the life of an infant is already illegal.

Kentucky’s SB 9 requires a physician performing an abortion to take all medically appropriate and reasonable steps to preserve the life and health of a “born alive” infant.

But here’s the thing: ABORTION PROVIDERS ALREADY DO THAT.

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The National Anthem, Lady Gaga, and the Entertainment Culture in 2021

found online by Raymond

 

From Glenn R. Geist MadMikesAmerica:

Of course, you might write off my increasing distress at the increasing infantilism of Americans to my increasing age, but might I be forgiven if I think that the longer I read and listen and experience, the more discriminating I become? Or you might just join the commercially supported mockery of all that challenges our main national product. We don’t make all that steel anymore, but we make advertising. we make noise. Older people? Hahaha!

And if some visitors from another planet were to judge us by what is coming over the air, you might forgive them for seeing a species with little purpose beyond constant wild, antic, vulgar, and corybantic gyration with little purpose. Turn on the tube and you’ll see people dancing around with diabetes and jubilating a host of moderate to severe alphabet soup diseases. Even those with metastatic cancer seem to be having a better time than I am having to watch endless ads or watching someone singing the anthem while dressed in a deflated balloon.

Look, nobody is disgusted by American History more than I am. I see ritual patriotism as just another fraud and hypocritical lie. but if we are to have an anthem, please can it be an anthem? Can we set it to a ragtime beat and still call in an anthem? There is no officially designated arrangement after all. Can we paint the White House blue? There’s no law against it!

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We Could Be Another Portugal!

found online by Raymond

 

António Salazar, authoritarian leader of Portugal becomes conservative model     [Image from Wikipedia]

From PZ Myers:

Some on the right are now aware that it was a bad idea to stage an attempted conservative revolution with a bumbling incompetent as a figurehead leading a mob of stupid mooks. Oops. We need to step back. We need to recalculate. We need to look around for better role models. We need a guy who represents true conservative values.

So over on The American Conservative, Michael Warren Davis (he has a book coming out from Regnery so you know exactly how he thinks) has found his hero. It’s Antonio Salazar, the authoritarian dictator of Portugal for 36 years. He was definitely an intelligent person, he oversaw many improvements in Portuguese life, and he definitely made the nation more stable…by ending all political dissent, staging nothing but sham elections, and ruling as an autocrat. If stability is a conservative ideal, he certainly represented that while he was alive. Unfortunately, once he was dead the Portuguese people had the Carnation Revolution in 1974 to enact civil rights and free elections, which was kind of a repudiation of the Salazar situation. So stability for as long as the strong man has his fist clenched, but once it relaxes in death, upheaval.

He also had some strong views: he opposed fascism, and maintained Portugal’s neutrality in WWII, in spite of sharing a lot of ideals with Nazi Germany (“Deus, Pátria e Família”, “God, Fatherland, and Family”, which sounds awfully familiar). He also opposed socialism, communism, and democracy, though, so that’s a bit of a mixed bag.

On the American Conservative, they’re waiting for our Salazar. Trump wasn’t it. In an essay full of praise for a dictator, Davis concludes that we just need a benevolent autocrat.

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The ‘Crisis’ Dictatorship

found online by Raymond

 

     [Image from Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash]

From libertarian Michael A. LaFerrara:

It turns out I underestimated the consequences of the COVID-19 precedent. A “racial equity crisis?” The racism of the “Anti-Racist” movement has reached the top of the American government. If you can look at statistical disparities based on racial groups as a “crisis,” what can’t be deemed a “crisis” justifying the next authoritarian wave by whomever happens to be in the White House at the time?

Trump was accused of pushing America toward more authoritarianism. There’s truth in that. He did. But his authoritarianism was more bluster than real. Trump’s authoritarianism is non-ideological power-lust. That’s dictatorial, for sure. Now, under Biden, we are going to see what real authoritarianism looks like, Biden style. It’s much more dangerous, because the Democratic Party’s authoritarianism is ideologically driven.

Ideology tends to be all-encompassing. Thus, an ideology (or philosophy) rooted in individualism leads in the direction of a fully free society, and the United States of America. A collectivist ideology leads to the totalitarian state, and the likes of the Soviet Union. Whereas an authoritarian like Trump tends to want to force his will on things that interests him, limiting its scope, an statist ideology tends to lead to totalitarianism.

And the Democratic Left’s is a statist ideology, specifically collectivist, which goes way beyond Trumpism. Statist ideology leads not just to authoritarianism but to totalitarianism, as Italian Facism, Nazism, Communism, and theocracy do. The Biden Administration won’t end in totalitarianism. But that’s its orientation, because it’s socialism, by design. Whereas Trump-style authoritarianism is simply bullying people, socialism is subordination of all individual affairs to state authority.

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Free Will … Or Not

found online by Raymond

 

17th Century Dutch Philosopher Baruch Spinoza Argued Against Free Will

From Nan’s Notebook:

What is “free will”? Psychology Today describes it thus:

Free will is the idea that humans have the ability to make their own choices and determine their own fates.

It follows up with this question:

Is a person’s will free, or are people’s lives in fact shaped by powers outside of their control?

Personally, I lean towards the second part of the above question –that we are influenced by things outside of our control– and I explain why below. I’ve shared my perspective on a couple of blogs and the responses have been … well, interesting.

Here are my thoughts …

All we have is NOW. The past is gone; the future has not yet arrived. We cannot change what has already happened any more than we can control what will come. We can learn from the past and use this knowledge in an attempt to modify our future, but essentially, we have no control over even the next second. It is only in our minds that either has substance.

Thus, in essence, we are simply pawns of time.

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Why Republicans Should Support Impeaching and Convicting Trump

found online by Raymond

 

Trump Sponsored Rioters Battle Police in the Capitol     [Image from Guardian News]

From Our favorite Earth-Bound Misfit:

What criminal acts of a president would warrant removal, if sedition is not enough? Does he have to be caught, on camera, handing over state secrets to the Russians? Strangling his wife in the Lincoln Bedroom? Raping the vice-president’s dog?

If sending a mouth-foaming mob to the Capitol to kill the vice-president and to prevent the certification of an election isn’t enough to warrant removal, then the impeachment provision of the Constitution, as it applies to presidents, is a dead letter.

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